


because you're mine

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: And We Got All The Fun We Need [5]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caroline and Lorraine have their rules, and they stick to them. (Or maybe they're more like guidelines.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	because you're mine

**Author's Note:**

> 'Large bitey things, small bitey things, and vegetarians' was originated as a dinosaur classification system by reggietate.

            Lorraine doesn’t understand the strange new solidity she’s found with Caroline very well, but she knows she can rely on it. She’s never been great at people where the rules aren’t defined, and Caroline keeps her rules deliberately vague and hazy, switches them up on Lorraine just to keep her on her toes. Lorraine’s sister called Caroline a commitment-phobe; Lorraine’s father said rather dryly that he didn’t think Caroline was the marrying type, darling.

 

            Lorraine has never been sure that marriage means very much to her, and she knows now that she does have Caroline’s commitment - that Caroline’s sure, now, and neither of them needs to be afraid of anything. Lorraine also knows Caroline’s rules and how to play by them, because between them they’ve finally set the parameters of this game and they can really get started.

 

            She hides her smile in the rim of her glass and doesn’t reprove Caroline when Caroline saunters back from the bar with everyone’s eyes on her and a smile for Lorraine alone. Caroline sits down opposite her and sips her drink, leaning forward so Lorraine can see straight down her shirt.

 

            Lorraine doesn’t take the bait. She stretches out her legs, not-so-accidentally running the toe of one fire-engine red heel up Caroline’s calf. “Having fun, darling?”

 

            “Oh yes,” Caroline says, a self-confident laugh bubbling under in her voice, but Lorraine chose to wear these shoes out tonight for a reason – they’re Caroline’s _favourites_ \- and Caroline’s extraordinary eyes are ever-so-slightly wide.

 

            “You really shouldn’t play with your food before you eat it, you know,” Lorraine observes, taking a sanctimoniously lady-like sip of her Kir Royale and watching as Caroline absent-mindedly destroys the plateful of mezze in front of them.

 

            “I might skip supper, actually,” Caroline says, recovering her composure and chasing a smudge of taramasalata around her lips, shining with soft gold lip-gloss. “I’m way too hungry.”

 

            “I was talking about the pita,” Lorraine lies, voice as dry as the Sahara.

 

            She actually loves this. No-one except Caroline would believe her if she told them. So of course her phone goes off just then.

 

***

 

            Caroline’s heart sinks when that familiar ringtone starts playing for several reasons. One, unless she’s unbelievably lucky, their night out will be over, and two, unless she’s unbelievably lucky, Lorraine will be stuck in the office all night and there will be a distinct shortage of action between the sheets this evening. Which sucks, as does the fact that Lorraine’s lost that gorgeous half-grin and light in her eyes, and is frowning at the table, drawing squiggles in the circles of moisture their glasses have left behind.

 

            Caroline loads up a corner of pita with hummus and pops it into Lorraine’s mouth. Lorraine barely pauses in her conversation with the man on the other end of the phone – with Lester.

 

            “- if it’s really necessary, sir, I will come in,” Lorraine says finally, shortly, “but I’m bringing Caroline,” and she hangs up and Caroline’s heart almost stops.

 

            “Lorraine,” she manages after a moment. Lorraine is muttering at her handbag, putting her phone away and digging for her pass in its endless recesses, but she looks up at that.

 

            “Yes?”

 

            “Are you sure?”

 

            Lorraine blinks at her, and tilts her head slightly. “About what?”

 

            “Taking me...” Caroline makes a vague hand-gesture. Fourteen years in the clink for blabbing to the wrong person is more than enough reason to be a bit hazy about things like the ARC. “You know? I could take a cab home.”

 

            “I’d like it if you were there,” Lorraine says slowly, “mostly because I want you there, but also partly because I would like you to help me rub the fact that he’s _ruined_ our night into Lester’s smug little face.”

 

            Seriously, the careful way she phrases things gets Caroline all hot and bothered. It’s probably Caroline’s inner lawyer. “I’m... on board with this enterprise.”

 

            “Beam me up, Scotty,” Lorraine says with a perfectly straight face, and Caroline bursts out laughing and awards Lorraine a mental point.

 

            Caroline didn’t have to lie to Connor about liking sci-fi. All she had to... fail to mention... was that it was a girlfriend who grew up on Uhura monitoring her frequency who’d got her well and truly into Trek, because if there’s one thing Caroline likes better than a guilty pleasure it’s shredding that guilty pleasure to pieces, and nobody highlights the problematic elements of 1960s television like Lorraine. She picks up her handbag and stands, holding her hand out to Lorraine.

 

            “Get your coat, sweetheart, you’ve pulled.”

 

***

 

            The first thing Lester says when Lorraine sails into the atrium, trailing Caroline in her wake, is “I do hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, Miss Wickes?”

 

            “Yes, you were, sir,” Lorraine says, making a beeline for her office. Caroline’s hand is tucked firmly into the crook of her elbow; it tightens slightly as Connor spins and falls off the computer chair in front of the ADD, and Lorraine doesn’t need to turn around to see the careful bland look that will have settled onto Caroline’s face.

 

            “And I do trust you’ll be on your best behaviour, Miss Steel?” is the second thing Lester says.

 

            “Of course I won’t, sir,” Caroline says, and Lorraine doesn’t bother to hide the victory smile on her face.

 

            That’s her girl.

 

***

 

            Caroline always liked Jenny Lewis; of all Lorraine’s colleagues she seems most sympathetic and best able to understand the fact that appearances matter, and that they can be a weapon in their own right – sometimes the only one you’ve got. So it helps that Jenny’s sitting at her desk typing frantically when they reach Lorraine’s office, and that Jenny’s warm smile is for Lorraine _and_ Caroline. Caroline still has a funny taste in the back of her mouth from seeing Connor Temple’s horror-struck, puppyish face; she hopes he did get the bleach-blonde, and that she treats him better than Caroline did.

 

            Or possibly what she’s tasting is the remains of their nibbles. White wine spritzer and taramasalata. Not a felicitous combination.

 

            Caroline takes a seat in the corner, and watches Lorraine get to work, focus switching absolutely. From the calm questions Lorraine’s firing at Jenny, the PR disaster they’re facing is pretty much business as usual. The anomaly itself has been cleared up; the problem is the party of teenagers having a sleep-over at a house overlooking it, who filmed the whole thing, with some close-ups on particular members of the team that Jenny describes as _frankly egregious_. The film has been confiscated and deleted, but something really has to be done about the few people the girls managed to send it to before Abby accidentally-on-purpose dropped the very expensive iPhone it had been taken on and even more accidentally stood on it. Especially considering them that one of them was one of the girls’ fathers, a journalist at a major tabloid.

 

            “You know,” Lorraine says blandly, “there really is no reason to feel threatened by a couple of sixth-formers hitting on your boyfriend.”

 

            Jenny screws up a draft of a press release and throws it at Lorraine. Chivalrously, Caroline bats it away with an umbrella and nearly takes Lorraine’s eye out, which gets her a brief laughing glance.

 

            “Captain Becker should just stop ordering Blade to deal with the public, it _never_ ends well,” Jenny says, sending emails at the speed of light.

 

            Caroline sits back and watches the ARC’s iron-clad damage-limitation machine go into action.

 

***

 

            Lorraine really hopes Caroline isn’t getting bored, because it can be strange to be on the outside of this, with nothing to do. She glances up every now and again and finds Caroline on her BlackBerry, turning a curl around her finger and biting her lip, eyes narrowed at the screen in that way that means she’s composing an email to one of the family members she doesn’t talk to.

 

            Blade wanders in about an hour later; at that precise moment, Jenny happens to be swearing like a sailor down the phone and Lorraine is fielding a Minister, so neither of them looks up, and because Blade is sensible enough in his psychotic way he just walks straight out again.

 

            When Jenny and Lorraine next look up, they are the only ones in the room.

 

            “I could have sworn Blade came in here,” Jenny says, looking at Lorraine.

 

            “I could have sworn Caroline was sitting right there,” Lorraine frowns, looking at the empty chair in the corner.

 

            “Oh God,” Jenny says. “Do we go and find them now, or wait for the explosions?”

 

            “There won’t be explosions,” Lorraine says confidently. Mayhem, maybe, explosions, no.

 

            There is a poorly-contained roar of fury from next door, and they catch each other’s eye.

 

            “Don’t look at me, _you’re_ his secretary,” Jenny says.

 

            “Must you throw me to the wolves?” Lorraine says, but gets up to go anyway.

 

            Caroline won’t do any permanent damage. Lorraine is ninety-nine percent sure that’s against the rules.

 

***

 

            “You must have been bored as hell,” Blade says bluntly, and Caroline settles her handbag on her shoulder and shrugs, allowing herself to be led through the ARC.

 

            “Could’ve been worse. Have we actually met, by the way? I can’t remember your name.”

 

            “Blade. And you’re Caroline.”

 

            “That’s me,” Caroline agrees more cheerfully than she feels. Of course everyone in the ARC knows who she is. She’s the manipulative bitch of a double agent with a girlfriend who’s too good for her (except _damn straight_ she is, and she is excellent at being what she is, and Lorraine loves her and that’s what really matters – but other people don’t know that, do they? And part of Caroline still cares about what people think, for some bullshit reason she doesn’t really understand.)

 

            A thought occurs to her. It should have occurred to her at least three minutes ago, but this is how she ended up playing James Bond with added dinosaurs and signing a lease on a flat in Putney with Lorraine, and both of those are working out just fine, so Caroline doesn’t waste her time worrying. “Where are you taking me?” 

 

            “Rec room,” Blade says matter-of-factly. “I could use a cup of tea, and you could use not being in Lester’s line of fire.”

 

            “Good point well made,” Caroline remarks, and doesn’t bother to expose herself by asking if it’s the rec room everyone uses, or if it’s just the soldiers. Anyway, when they went through the atrium, Connor was still hunched over the anomaly detector, so the risks of meeting him are lower than they might have been.

 

            Blade is comfortable with silence, it turns out. Caroline is really not. And there’s information she wants, too.

 

            “Quiet night at work?” she enquires, looking for some kind of opening gambit.

 

            Blade shrugs, gorgeous face impassive. “Quiet for us, yeah. Miss Wickes and Miss Lewis will be having a fine time, but that’s not our problem.”

 

            Caroline surmises, correctly, that ‘us’ means the soldiers, and goes for bluntness. She thinks Blade might appreciate it, or would at least pay attention to it in a way he won’t if she tries to make her point obliquely. “Is Abby still in?”

 

            “Yep.” Blade turns his head and smirks down at her, effortlessly dodging a young Anglo-Chinese physicist in a lab coat who gives Caroline the kind of suspicious look Caroline long ago pigeonholed as Scarlet Woman. Caroline has run out of fucks to give about that kind of thing. She looks excellent in her dress, which is a personal favourite, short and Grecian and peridot green, and she knows exactly who will be taking it off for her at the end of the night.

 

            Caroline pushes the physicist and her judgemental looks out of her mind. “Is that going to be a problem?”

 

            “You tell me,” Blade says.

 

            “I don’t want to kick-box in this dress. It’s _new_ ,” Caroline says plaintively, and the smirk grows on his face.

 

            “You’ll be fine. Miss Maitland isn’t usually violent.”

 

            “Yes, but she _hates_ me.” Caroline brushes through a door after Blade, and finds herself confronted with a largish room, containing a small kitchen, battered sofas, a TV and a Wii set up for four players. It also contains several people – Stephen Hart sitting on the kitchen worktop texting, heedless of suspicious-looking stains and small sticky puddles of coffee, a couple of soldiers dressed in black like Blade and playing Super Mario Smash Brothers. One woman in her early thirties is standing by the fridge eating cold couscous out of a Tupperware; she has soft brown hair, casual, robust clothing, and a printed-out Powerpoint beside her labelled SMALL BITEY THINGS, LARGE BITEY THINGS, AND VEGETARIANS: THE PRACTICAL FIELD GUIDE TO DINOSAURS, BY STEPHEN HART AND TEGAN WILLIAMS.

 

            Caroline experiences a brief moment of complete and utter dislocation. _How_ is this her life?

 

            She mutters words to that effect under her breath. The couscous-eater gives her a resigned smile, Stephen offers her an appreciative grin and absent words of greeting, and Blade puts the kettle on and says nothing at all.

 

***

 

            Lester has stopped yelling. He has not stopped snapping, and he has moved on to Lorraine’s personal life, because he needs something to snap about and has now exhausted the prurience of modern society (always a promising topic).

 

            “-and of all the people you had to bring here!” he concludes, pausing to take a breath. “ _Caroline Steel_!”

           

            “She’s signed the Official Secrets Act,” Lorraine says calmly, suppressing a desire to kill him slowly. “She’s on _our_ side.”

 

            “Have you forgotten about Connor Temple?”

 

            “Hypocritical, sir,” Lorraine sighs. She hasn’t forgotten Christine Johnson, either, and she doesn’t think they’ve seen the last of her. That gossip embarrassed Christine, even if there was approximately as much substance to it as there was to Connor and Caroline’s relationship, and Lester let it happen because it amused him to, and because it was useful ammunition.

 

            That shuts Lester up.

 

            “She won’t talk,” Lorraine assures him gently, more because gentleness is appropriate to calming him down than because she actually cares. She is unspeakably annoyed with him right now, and until he apologises, there will be a tiny pinch of salt in every cup of coffee she makes him.

 

            Lester closes his mouth and takes a deep breath in through the nose. “You’re right.”

 

            That’s what Lorraine’s been waiting for. She holds out the sheet of paper on which is written a log of the calls she’s taken in the past half-hour – first from the Minister’s PA, and then from his secretary.

 

            “Let’s see what we can do with this,” Lester sighs, eyeballing the sheet of paper. There is a long moment of silence as he reads her neat notes, and then – “Where is she?”

 

            Typical: just as she was about to leave. “Good question, sir. Ask me another one.”

           

***

 

            The soldiers have gone from the rec room without giving Caroline more than a few curious looks; something about pooper-scooper duty and Miss Maitland’ll kill them if, which Caroline takes as a comment on menagerie duties. She shudders slightly, thankful that nothing of the kind has ever fallen to her. She’s never wanted pets. Or kids.

 

            Much the same thing, really.

 

            Stephen Hart and Tegan Williams (“Dr Williams,” Blade introduced them, and “Tegan,” the woman herself had insisted) are thrashing through the last elements of the PowerPoint, getting it down to a fine art. Tegan’s writing is dramatic, Stephen’s cramped; it amuses Caroline to watch Tegan slashing through entire sentences with theatrical sweeps of the pen while Stephen tucks his contributions into tiny corners.

 

            “Very popular lecture, that,” Blade says, jerking his head at Tegan and Stephen, who are both completely oblivious. “More practical than Cutter or Temple.”

 

            “Uh-huh,” Caroline says, and measures the pair up carefully. Stephen is beautiful, of course; deliciously angsty and far too high-maintenance for Caroline. Tegan isn’t half bad, either, with that unselfconscious grace and sweet face. “You’re sure it’s not because of the lecturers?”

 

            “No,” Blade says, with a sneaking grin.

 

            Caroline sniggers.

 

***

 

            “Seriously,” Jenny says, “have you got any idea where they’ve gone?”

 

            “I have no idea,” Lorraine says, “and I’m more worried about the Minister for Defence.”

 

***

 

            “Thanks for the tea,” Caroline murmurs. The silence is stretching out.

 

            “Welcome,” Blade tells her blandly.

 

            Caroline thinks he’s doing this on purpose, to make her uncomfortable, and taps her fingers on the counter. “Is Connor OK?”

 

            “Fine,” Blade says uncommunicatively.

 

            Caroline taps her fingers again and folds her lips. “Did he end up with the blonde?”

 

           “What, Abby?” Blade looks genuinely slightly surprised, which would be complete shock on anyone else. “Fuck, no.”

 

           Caroline blinks. “So what-?”

 

           Blade, the arse, waits until Caroline’s got a mouthful of (now rather lukewarm) tea. “He’s dating Matt.”

 

           Caroline spits her tea out all over his face: karma. “ _Who_?”

 

           Blade makes a face and wipes off the tea. “One of my mates. I share a house with him.”

 

           “Matt. Him. A guy? Connor’s gay?” Caroline shakes her head abruptly: she knows better. Connor’s attraction to her was genuine, at least on the surface, and as far as Abby was concerned – well, he thought she’d hung the moon and stars. “Bi, I mean?”

 

           Blade grins. “Yep. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

 

           Caroline glares. “No.”  


           “Well, he didn’t see you being gay coming either,” Blade says cheerfully. “You snogging Miss Wickes came as quite a shock.”

 

           “Bi,” Caroline corrects irritably. She does remember the look on Connor’s face when he saw her trip and stumble into Lorraine’s arms, the cold spot where Leek had held a gun to her head still burning on her skin, and cling to her girlfriend. It actually made her feel like a bad person for a while. “What happened to Abby?”

 

           “Pretending she’s just friends with Captain Stringer.” Blade shrugs. “Not my problem.”

 

           There’s a long silence.

 

           “Is Connor OK?” Caroline says at length.

 

           Blade gives her an is-this-relevant look.

 

           Caroline gives him an I’m-talking-about-it,-so-yes look back.

 

           Blade shrugs again. His whole demeanour is telling her that he really couldn’t give a shit, which is oddly callous. “Seems fine.”

 

           Blade clearly has the emotional intelligence of an oyster-shell, Caroline concludes, and lets the silence wash over them again.

 

***

 

            “They can’t get into too much trouble, can they?” Jenny says, staring doubtfully at Lorraine. There’s a temporary lull in the evening’s excitements and alarums, which means Jenny has time to worry herself about what Caroline and Blade could conceivably be getting up to – which is admittedly rather a lot.

 

            “They could, but why would they want to?” Lorraine points out, trying to apply common sense to the situation. She rubs her hands over her eyes, realises she’s just smeared eyeshadow everywhere, and goes for her handbag to find a small mirror and sort it out. “I can’t honestly think of a reason why Blade would want to cause havoc. Caroline definitely doesn’t.”

 

            “I can just see them not _meaning_ to cause an international incident,” Jenny says darkly.

 

            “They’ve probably gone down to the rec room for a gossip.” Jenny has a point, Lorraine concedes to herself, and focuses on smoothing the blurred lines of her make-up. Blade and Caroline could probably get into all kinds of trouble without meaning to. But if they did, surely Jenny and Lorraine would only find out afterwards, once the damage had been done? There’s no point worrying now. “Go and have a look, if you like.”

 

            Jenny lets out a sigh. “I think I might, you know? Just to check. Will you hold the fort down here?”

 

            “Of course.” Lorraine sits back in her seat. “Could you get me a coffee while you’re down there?”

 

            “Absolutely. Milk and no sugar, right?”

 

            Lorraine nods and Jenny leaves; the phone goes off, and Lorraine picks it up, sinking easily into yet another stonewalling conversation with the Minister’s secretary. She pushes Caroline and Blade and whatever mischief they may be up to right out of her mind.

 

***

 

            Caroline is smart enough to know, when Jenny comes marching into the rec room, that she’s there to check on them – but she doesn’t say it out loud, just smiles blandly at Jenny and looks thoughtfully down into her second cup of tea.

 

             Blade turns and grins at Jenny. He’s a very good-looking man when he smiles. “Come to make sure we haven’t blown the place up?”

 

           “Of course not,” Jenny says brusquely, but allows Blade to put an arm around her waist and draw her close, one of her hands resting lightly on his shoulder. “I came to make a cup of coffee. I hope you aren’t too bored, Caroline?”

 

           “I’m fine,” Caroline says, taken slightly by surprise. “Is Lorraine all right?”

 

           “Oh, fine.” Jenny shakes her head. “Busy, tired, but then, we all are.”

 

           “So this is where the party is,” Professor Cutter says, appearing from nowhere. “Problem solved, Jenny?”

 

           “No,” Jenny says. She and Blade somehow have a respectable foot of space between them, even though Caroline didn’t see either of them move. “Unfortunately. I just came downstairs to get a coffee.”

 

           “Okay,” Cutter nods peaceably. He’s followed into the room by Stephen and Tegan, the latter carrying an open laptop which they’re both fixated on, a stocky young man a bit older than Caroline with grey eyes and a couple of six-packs of beer, the Anglo-Chinese physicist who was giving Caroline the stink-eye earlier, and Connor and Abby.

 

            Blade sniggers, soft and low and under his breath. Caroline carefully does not pull a face at him; Connor and Abby will pick up on it. She can’t afford to make this worse than it already is, and it’s pretty bad anyway. Lorraine isn’t here to help her, either.

 

            She’s so screwed.

 

***

 

 

            “They’re absolutely fine,” Jenny announces, re-entering the office.   


            “Good,” Lorraine says, sending her last few emails. They’ve finally got that D-Notice; it came through about five minutes ago. Connor has successfully destroyed the footage by less than legal means, he just came up to tell her so. Lester even dropped by to thank her for coming in on a night off, promise to pay overtime, and send his apologies to Caroline. Lorraine is feeling quite pleased with herself, and is looking forward to teasing Jenny for being out of the office when their problem was finally solved.

 

            “Abby’s joined them,” Jenny adds, faux-casually, “and so have a few of the others – Stephen, Nick, Ciarán, Tegan, the usual lot. I’m afraid they’ve broken out the alcohol as an aid to boredom.”  


            Lorraine leaps involuntarily out of her seat, scrabbling for her handbag. “And you _left_ them?”

 

            Jenny smirks. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

 

            Lorraine mutters something, anything, and heads for the rec room as quickly as she can without running.

 

 

***

           

            The conversation is lagging. Caroline’s watching Abby and Abby’s watching Caroline and everyone’s watching them, waiting for some kind of explosion. Caroline’s determined to make sure it doesn’t happen, and she knows she needs to do it. Abby won’t lift a finger to help her get past this (surprise, surprise).

 

           There’s only one way out of this, and that’s shock tactics. “You’re thinking about my spying on Leek, aren’t you?”

 

            It comes out even bolder than she means it to and Abby glares back at her. “Yes.”

 

            “I’m not surprised.” Caroline takes a meditative sip of her beer and stares thoughtfully into the distance as if completely unconcerned, a small smile hovering about her lips – then she looks into Abby’s eyes and knows exactly how she can shock and amuse and reassure her all at once. She leans forward conspiratorially. “You want to know why I _really_ did it?”

 

            “Tell me,” Abby says, radiating scepticism.

 

            “To impress Lorraine,” Caroline nods, eyes wide and innocent-but-not, and takes a large gulp of beer. “I mean, come on. My girlfriend is a stunning former spy and brilliant shot with a brain the size of a planet and, coincidentally, a great rack. I can’t compete, can I?”

 

            Abby lets out an involuntary giggle, icy facade cracking, and Caroline laughs back at her. They’re more alike than either of them cares to admit, she knows; defensive, for one thing. Terrible at committing, for another. It’s a good thing they’ve both found people who don’t seem to mind either characteristic much.

 

            “I’m touched, darling,” Lorraine says wryly, appearing in the doorway like magic. Caroline salutes her with a beer-bottle and a cheeky grin. “Stop corrupting my colleagues. They haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

 

            “ _Awww_ ,” Caroline says, and holds out a hand.

 

            Lorraine takes it, and pulls her gently off the table. “Come on. We’re going home.”

 

            Caroline kisses her. “Great. I only broke your colleagues a little bit, I promise.”

 

            Lorraine brushes one of Caroline’s slightly dishevelled curls off her face and gives her that doting smile. “I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.”

 

            “You wound me, baby,” Caroline says, and her eyes laugh at Lorraine.

 

            And because they know where they stand with each other now, Lorraine is laughing back.


End file.
